Family Visits: Parent Voices in a Teacher-Initiated Practice

• In Event: 58.082 - Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 58.082-18 - Overcoming Deficit Mindset Practices in School, Family, Community Partnerships: The Promise of Home Visits

Abstract

Family visits are a practice used to bridge the gap between homes and schools. Because they are teacher-initiated practices, parents may experience these visits with a number of emotions and perceptions around the teachers’ intentions for the visits. Likewise, parents may also conceptualize their roles in education as one that may be different from how schools traditionally engage parents. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to understand teacher and particularly parent perspectives around their family visit experiences and their perceived roles in the students’ education, as parents’ perceptions are often left out of the literature on family visits. Findings show that shared intentions of the visits and conceptualized roles of parent and teacher participants improved relationships, partnerships, and communication.

Author

• Nathanie Alice Lee, University of Washington - Seattle